Summons and Dispels

[melkorspawn]

It's not necessary to conceive of it in such florid terms; for my part, I imagine Hyp merely sees the rules as a set of intricately interlocked "if-then" statements that can be pulled apart like a delicate puzzle in surprising places.

I don't mean to be brusque, so let me rephrase that: Neither of them are arguing for some metaphysical description of the process that must necessarily be more valid. They are simply having an argument over the semantics and wording of the rules.

I just entered the constraints of their arguments into the Autocad of my mind's eye, and I was wondering if they perhaps saw it the same way.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Hyp sees the Summoned creatures teathered to an extradimentional gate at the center of the circle in which they were initially summoned. Any cutting of the magic teather, either clipping it at the monster end, the gate end, or somewhere in the middle, will unsummon all the creatures who have lost part of their teather. The gate is invisible to the naked eye and isn't generally usable for purposes other than maintaining the summons.

The flavour text is new, but it pretty much describes how I read the mechanics, yeah.

An area dispel that covers either the point of origin or a summoned monster ends the spell.

-Hyp.

 

[moritheil]

I just entered the constraints of their arguments into the Autocad of my mind's eye, and I was wondering if they perhaps saw it the same way.

I see. Well, the problem is that one approach or the other may be aesthetically or metaphysically more appealing, but that has no bearing on the actual argument. If it were a metaphysical argument, it might. This is the distinction I wished to make.

 

[Infiniti2000]

The flavour text is new, but it pretty much describes how I read the mechanics, yeah.

Agreed. A very intriguing way to put it, melkorspawn. I see no restriction to a single point of origin, so basically you need to sever the point of origin for each creature. Moreover, if you summon one creature then the point of origin moves with the creature under my interpretation, but under Hyp's you could either dispel the creature (e.g. if the creature is far away from its original location) or you could area dispel the original location regardless of where the creature is currently. I don't think that has sufficient support in the rules, though, because I've shown proof that the point of origin can move.

Awesome. I had always suspected that EN Worlders had a truly bizarre compulsion to argue over who was being less polite, and now I have seen another example of such an instance. Hurrah for meta-argument.

It happens. I had no intent not to be polite and our esteemed Lord Pendragon inferred insult. It merely escalated from there, but hopefully it is over. Fwiw, LP, if you took any offense, please accept my apologies.

 

[Caliban]

It is my understanding that the concern of the forum is determining exactly what the rules say, no matter how illogical, nonsensical, far-fetched, or convoluted they may be.

I would say that your understanding is incorrect. That is the concern of some people on the forum, but that is not the sole purpose of this forum.

Some of us prefer to come up with an interpretation that actually helps us play the game, instead of the mind-numbing abstract rules dissection that the RAW crowd likes to engages in.

The RAW discussions rarely help you play the game, they just lead to increasingly bizarre scenarios or rulings based on the rules as an abstract concept with little or no connection to how the game is actually played.

 

[moritheil]

I would say that your understanding is incorrect. That is the concern of some people on the forum, but that is not the sole purpose of this forum.

Some of us prefer to come up with an interpretation that actually helps us play the game, instead of the mind-numbing abstract rules dissection that the RAW crowd likes to engages in.

The RAW discussions rarely help you play the game, they just lead to increasingly bizarre scenarios or rulings based on the rules as an abstract concept with little or no connection to how the game is actually played.

I think I missed something here. Isn't it necessary to know what the rules say even if you're going to house-rule it, even if for no other reason than knowing what to tell your players?

I mean, it's also my understanding that it's bad manners to house-rule things and not tell your players. If you play differently, that's fine by me, but I'm operating under that paradigm.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I think I missed something here. Isn't it necessary to know what the rules say even if you're going to house-rule it, even if for no other reason than knowing what to tell your players?

I'll point out that it's also critical as a player. It's very useful to know the debatable areas before deciding on an action for your character. Making an assumption of the rules, acting upon it, and then having the DM seemingly houserule it otherwise is the source of an unwanted debate. For example, in this case as a player I would not have thought to attempt to dispel the initial location of a monster from a summon monster spell, but at least I know now that some DM's out there might allow it (e.g. Hyp).

 

[Caliban]

I think I missed something here. Isn't it necessary to know what the rules say even if you're going to house-rule it, even if for no other reason than knowing what to tell your players?

I mean, it's also my understanding that it's bad manners to house-rule things and not tell your players. If you play differently, that's fine by me, but I'm operating under that paradigm.

My post had nothing to do with house rules. Why are you trying to turn it into that?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

My post had nothing to do with house rules. Why are you trying to turn it into that?

Because you've decided that, at a certain point, what the RAW actually say doesn't matter because you're going to run it however you're going to run it.

That's generally what house rules do.

Now, it's possible that sometimes, such an attitude doesn't lead to house rules - but it sometimes does, as well.

 

[dcollins]

Now, when you use Summon Monster II to summon two monsters, you don't have two Effects, each being one monster; you have one Effect, which is two monsters.

Just for the record, my reading is exactly the opposite.